Illustrious on his shoulders fledge with wings

:

Lay waving round on some great charge employ'd
He seem'd, or fix'd in cogitation deep.

Glad was the spirit impure, as now in hope

To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of man,
His journey's end, and our beginning woe.
But first he casts to change his proper shape;
Which else might work him danger or delay :
And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feign'd;
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold;
His habit fit for speed succinct; and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard; the angel bright,
Ere he drew nigh, his radiant visage turn'd,
Admonish'd by his ear; and straight was known
The archangel Uriel, one of the seven,

Who in God's presence nearest to his throne
Stand ready at command, and are his eyes

That run through all the heavens, or down to the earth
Bear his swift errands, over moist and dry,
O'er sea and land: him Satan thus accosts :-

Uriel, for thou of those seven spirits that stand
In sight of God's high throne, gloriously bright,
The first are wont his great authentic will
Interpreter through highest heaven to bring,
Where all his sons thy embassy attend;
And here art likeliest by supreme decree
Like honour to obtain, and as his eye
To visit oft this new creation round;
Unspeakable desire to see, and know

All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man,
His chief delight and favour, him for whom
All these his works so wondrous he ordain'd,
Hath brought me from the quires of cherubim
Alone thus wandering. Brightest seraph, tell
In which of all these shining orbs hath man
His fixed seat, or fixed seat hath none,
But all these shining orbs his choice to dwell;

& Uriel.

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His name is derived from two Hebrew words, which signify God is my light. He is mentioned as a good angel in the second book of Esdras; and the Jews, and some Christians, conceive him to be an angel of light according to his name, and therefore he has, properly, his station in the sun.-NEWTON.

!

That I may find him, and, with secret gaze

Or open admiration, him behold,

On whom the great Creator hath bestow'd

Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces pour'd:
That both in him and all things, as is meet,

The universal Maker we may praise;
Who justly hath driven out his rebel foes
To deepest hell; and, to repair that loss,
Created this new happy race of men

To serve him better: wise are all his ways.
So spake the false dissembler unperceived;
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy h, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,

By his permissive will, through heaven and earth:
And oft, though wisdom wake i, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems; which now for once beguiled
Uriel, though regent of the sun, and held
The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in heaven:
Who to the fraudulent impostor foul,
In his uprightness, answer thus return'd:-

---

Fair angel, thy desire, which tends to know
The works of God, thereby to glorify
The great Work-master, leads to no excess
That reaches blame, but rather merits praise
The more it seems excess, that led thee hither
From thy empyreal mansion thus alone,
To witness with thine eyes what some perhaps,
Contented with report, hear only in heaven:
For wonderful indeed are all his works,
Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all

h Hypocrisy.

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What is said here of hypocrisy is censured as a digression; but it seems no more than is absolutely necessary; for otherwise it might be thought very strange, that the evil spirit should pass undiscovered by the archangel Uriel, the regent of the sun, and the sharpest-sighted spirit in heaven; and therefore the poet endeavours to account for it by saying, that hypocrisy cannot be discerned by man or angel; it is invisible to all but God, &c. But yet the evil spirit did not pass wholly undiscovered; for, though Uriel was not aware of him now, yet he found reason to suspect him afterwards from his furious gestures on the mount.-NEWTON.

The poet's recollection of his having been deluded by the matchless hypocrisy of Cromwell, might have inspired him with this admirable apology for Uriel.-HAYLEY. i And oft, though wisdom wake.

He must be very critically splenetic indeed who will not pardon this little digressional observation. There is not in my opinion a nobler sentiment, or one more poetically expressed, in the whole poem. What great art has the poet shown in taking off the dryness of a mere moral sentence, by throwing it into the form of a short and beautiful allegory!-THYER.

j Pleasant to know.

This is one of those places where a negligence in metre is not only excusable, in

Had in remembrace always with delight:
But what created mind can comprehend
Their number; or the wisdom infinite

That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep?
I saw, when at his word the formless mass,
This world's material mould, came to a heap;
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled; stood vast infinitude confined ;
Till at his second bidding darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Swift to their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements, earth, flood, air, fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of heaven
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That roll'd orbicular, and turn'd to stars
Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move;
Each had his place appointed, each his course;
The rest in circuit walls this universe.

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Look downward on that globe, whose hither side

With light from hence, though but reflected, shines;
That place is earth, the seat of man; that light
His day, which else, as the other hemisphere,

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Night would invade; but there the neighbouring moon,
So call that opposite fair star, her aid,

Timely interposes; and her monthly round

Still ending, still renewing, through mid heaven,

With borrow'd light her countenance triform
Hence fills and empties to enlighten the earth;
And in her pale dominion checks the night.
That spot to which I point is Paradise,
Adam's abode; those lofty shades his bower:
Thy way thou canst not miss, me mine requires.

Thus said, he turn'd; and Satan, bowing low,
As to superior spirits is wont in heaven,
Where honour due and reverence none neglects,
Took leave; and toward the coast of earth beneath,
Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success,
Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel,
Nor stay'd, till on Niphates' top1 he lights.

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taking away monotony, but carries with it a dignity which no smoothness of verse could give it, the words being in almost the same order as in Scripture.-STILLINGFLEET. And this ethereal quintessence.

The four elements hasted to their quarters, but this fifth essence flew upward.-NEWTON.

1 On Niphates' top.

The poet lands Satan on this mountain, says Hume, because it borders on Mesopotamia, in which the most judicious describers of Paradise place it.-Dunster.

Satan after having long wandered upon the surface, or utmost wall of the universe, discovers at last a wide gap in it, which led into the creation, and is described as the opening through which the angels pass to and fro into the lower world, upon their

errands to mankind. His sitting upon the brink of this passage, and taking a survey of the whole face of nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its beauties, with the simile illustrating this circumstance, fills the mind of the reader with as surprising and glorious an idea as any that arises in the whole poem. He looks down into that vast hollow of the universe with the eye, or as Milton calls it in his first book, with the ken of an angel. He surveys all the wonders in this immense amphitheatre that lies between both the poles of heaven, and takes in at one view the whole round of the creation.

His flight between the several worlds that shined on every side of him, and the particular description of the sun, are set forth in all the wantonness of a luxuriant imagination. His shape, speech, and behaviour, upon his transforming himself into an angel of light, are touched with exquisite beauty. The poet's thought of directing Satan to the sun, which in the vulgar opinion of mankind is the most conspicuous part of the creation; the placing in it an angel; is a circumstance very finely contrived, and the more adjusted to a poetical probability, as it was a received doctrine among the most famous philosophers, that every orb had its intelligence; and as an apostle in sacred writ is said to have seen such an angel in the sun. In the answer which this angel returns to the disguised evil spirit, there is such a becoming majesty as is altogether suitable to a superior being. The part of it in which he represents himself as present at the creation, is very noble in itself; and not only proper where it is introduced, but requisite to prepare the reader for what follows in the seventh book :

I saw, when at his word the formless mass,
This world's material mould, came to a heap:
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled; stood vast infinitude confined;
Till, at his second bidding, Darkness fled,

Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.

In the following part of the speech he points out the earth with such circumstances, that the reader can scarce forbear fancying himself employed on the same distant view of it.-ADDISON.

BOOK IV.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

I BELIEVE that this book of the poem is a general favourite with readers: there are parts of it beautiful; but it appears to me far less grand than the books which precede it: it has, I think, not only less sublimity, but less poetical invention. It required less imagination to describe the garden of Eden than Pandæmonium or Chaos. Adam and Eve are the one noble, the other lovely ;-but still they are human beings, with human passions.

Some criticisms might be made both on the described scenery, and on the occupations of our first parents. The gardener's skill and labours do not seem very necessary or natural at the first spring of the earth's creation. The bard seems for the moment so far to have forgot himself as to attempt rivality with the picturesque inventions of mere human poets: there is not that compression and massy strength, which is the usual quality of Miltonic painting. Grandeur was Milton's element, not beauty or tenderness! Invention will only be found where the natural strength lies, not where it is sought by labour and art. Where Milton drew a giant, he invented;-where he drew beauty, he borrowed. It has often been observed, that Satan is the hero of "Paradise Lost," not Adam; and this is true! Neither Adam nor Eve take a part sufficiently active and important.

ARGUMENT.

SATAN, now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprise which he undertook alone against God and man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despair; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and situation is described, overleaps the bounds; sits in the shape of a cormorant on the Tree of Life, as the highest in the garden, to look about him. The garden described; Satan's first sight of Adam and Eve: his wonder at their excellent form and happy state, but with resolution to work their fall: overhears their discourse; thence gathers that the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under penalty of death; and thereon intends to found his temptation, by seducing them to transgress then leaves them awhile, to know farther of their state by some other means. Meanwhile Uriel, descending on a sunbeam, warns Gabriel, who had in charge the gate of Paradise, that some evil spirit had escaped the deep, and passed at noon by his sphere in the shape of a good angel down to Paradise, discovered afterwards by his furious gestures in the mount. Gabriel promises to find him ere morning. Night coming on, Adam and Eve discourse of going to their rest; their bower described; their evening worship. Gabriel, drawing forth his bands of night-watch to walk the rounds of Paradise, appoints two strong angels to Adam's bower, lest the evil spirit should be there doing some harm to Adam or Eve sleeping; there they find him at the ear of Eve, tempting her in a dream, and bring him, though unwilling, to Gabriel; by whom questioned, he scornfully answers, prepares resistance, but, hindered by a sign from heaven, flies out of Paradise.

The poet opens this book with a wish, in the manner of Shakspeare: "O, for a Muse of fire!" Prol. to Hen. V.; "O, for a falconer's voice!" Rom. and Juliet, a. ii. s. 2. And, in order to raise the horror and attention of his reader, he